The native woodlands that once covered What is happening the Mount Lofty Ranges landscape have been reduced to a tenth of their former extent. This dramatic loss of habitat has devastating implications for the many to the woodland native birds that depend on it for survival.
The Mount Lofty Ranges Woodland Bird Monitoring Program provides a way to birds of the Mount observe and understand the changes happening now across the landscape. With this information we have the best chance of taking action to reduce the Lofty Ranges? decline of woodland birds in the region. Woodland birds in the Mount Lofty Ranges
If we learn, we can act A world-class program The program already for monitoring has many achievements The Mount Lofty Ranges of South Australia are nationally recognised for ‘The Mount Lofty Ranges Woodland Bird • The monitoring program shows which their ecological significance. They support Monitoring Program is the first long-term birds are becoming more common and a remote island of native woodland with study in Australia that is able to tell which less common in Mount Lofty Ranges endemic subspecies that is separated birds are becoming more or less common woodlands. by hundreds of kilometres from similar in the landscape over an entire region’, • More than 15 scientific papers have habitat in south-eastern Australia. said Professor Possingham. already used the data. • The research has led to improved Not only have we lost vast areas of The monitoring program design and monitoring methods in other natural woodland habitat in the Mount Lofty methods for data analysis were developed resource management programs. For Ranges, but the health of the remaining by a large research project undertaken by example, it has made it possible to patches is under increasing threat from the University of Queensland, supported by improve methods for monitoring feral introduced species, unsustainable use the Australian Research Council (ARC) and animals on Eyre Peninsula, and it has and the impacts of climate change. Commonwealth Environmental Research informed the development of a method Facility funds (www.aeda.edu.au). ‘The to analyse information from informal The rapid and dramatic loss of woodlands innovative monitoring design and analysis bird surveys. has devastating implications for the native has overcome many of the challenges for • The data is publicly accessible from birds and other animals that depend on measuring long-term trends’, said Dr Scott
2 Gawler
Figure 1. Mount Lofty Ranges Woodland Bird Monitoring Program sites
Pink Gum and Blue Gum sites Adelaide CBD Mount Barker Stringybark sites
National Parks
Native vegetation cover
Victor Harbor
0 5 10 15 20
3 Some birds are increasing, some are decreasing
Decreasing Increasing Decreasing Increasing Silvereye Rainbow Lorikeet Sacred Kingfisher Common Bronzewing
Figure 2 indicates how numbers of Figure 2. Average annual change in the chance of seeing a bird different bird species have changed over time in Stringybark Woodlands of the European Goldfinch Mount Lofty Ranges. The birds in the Chestnut-rumped Heathwren upper section are decreasing, whereas Brown Thornbill Striated Thornbill those below are increasing. Dark bars Sacred Kingfisher indicate that we are reasonably certain Superb Fairy-wren that there has been a change over time. Shining Bronze-cuckoo Silvereye White-browed Scrubwren ‘When we analyse the data we see that Brush Bronzewing some birds are clearly becoming more Red-browed Finch Elegant Parrot common, while many familiar birds Buff-rumped Thornbill are becoming less common. Some of Varied Sitella the birds becoming less common are Tree Martin Scarlet Robin favourites such as the Superb Fairy-wren, Common Starling Brown Thornbill, Scarlet Robin, Eastern Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike Spinebill and other small birds that eat Eastern Spinebill insects and need healthy woodland Fan-tailed Cuckoo Beautiful Firetail understorey to thrive. Species like the Yellow-tailed Black-cockatoo Beautiful Firetail may soon disappear Sulfur-crested Cockatoo from the region’ said Dr Judit Szabo, Common Blackbird New Holland Honeyeater who has spent several years analysing Crescent Honeyeater the data using advanced statistical tools. Grey Fantail White-naped Honeyeater Yellow Thornbill Adelaide Rosella Spotted Pardalote Horsfield’s Bronze-cuckoo Brown-headed Honeyeater Musk Lorikeet Laughing Kookaburra Red Wattlebird Galah Little Raven Grey Shrike-thrush Striated Pardalote Mistletoebird Yellow-faced Honeyeater White-throated Treecreeper Rufous Whistler Decreasing: Grey Currawong = More certain Golden Whistler = Less certain Common Bronzewing Rainbow Lorikeet Increasing: White-backed Magpie White-plumed Honeyeater = More certain Yellow-rumped Thornbill = Less certain -0.5 -0.25 0 0.25 0.5 4 Superb Fairy-wren Magpie
Have you seen a Fairy-wren? contribute to our economy’ said Dr Milne. More Magpies ... so what? ‘They are a great recreational and tourist We are lucky to have Superb Fairy-wrens attraction. Fairy-wrens also help control ‘Magpies are one of the most familiar on the edge of the city of Adelaide. But insect pests in lawns and ovals, and and loved examples of wildlife for many these very recognisable birds are not countless postcards, photographs and Australians. We love their morning song as common as they once were. Dr Tim paintings feature this remarkable bird’. and we feed them in our backyards’, Milne, project manager for the NCSSA said Professor Possingham. ‘However, explains that ‘It seems unthinkable to ‘The monitoring program is helping us Magpies are aggressive to other birds suggest that your grandchildren will not understand what is happening to our and even raid their nests. The increase be able to find a Superb Fairy-wren, but birds, what is causing declines and what in number of Magpies in the Mount this data suggests it is conceivable. If this we can do about it.’ Lofty Ranges is likely the result of loss trend persists we will need to do detailed of habitat for other bird species and the research on the ecology of species like this ‘A close encounter with a Superb Fairy- conversion of woodland to farmland.’ to determine the threats that are causing wren in a camping ground can often be the decline and act to abate those threats’. the most memorable experience for foreign ‘Apart from being pretty and playing a visitors to our shore. This is a bird we role in healthy woodlands, Fairy-wrens must keep, and we need it to be common.’
Figure 3 shows that Superb Fairy-wren Figure 3. Decline in numbers of the Superb Fairy-wren in Stringybark Woodland numbers have been declining each year for 70 the last decade in Stringybark Woodlands. 60 Some aggressive birds are becoming more 50 common. These include the Magpie (see
Magpie inset), Little Raven and Common 40 Bronzewing. The colourful Rainbow Lorikeet is also becoming more common 30 and competing for nesting sites in tree 20 hollows with other species such as the
Musk Lorikeet. The monitoring program can of sites with Fairy-wrensPercent 10 help us track and undertake conservation planning for changes like these. 0 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
5 We will better What is the future understand for our birds? the impacts of climate change
White-naped Honeyeater
The monitoring program is helping us to common following good spring and summer Small birds that feed in the shrub layer understand how climate change is affecting rainfall (see figure 4). Knowledge of the are feeling the pinch, while some large the birds of the Mount Lofty Ranges. Sacred abundance of our birds and how they aggressive birds are becoming more Kingfishers are more common after years change over time will help us to help common. Many bird watchers have with good rainfall, while Spotted Pardalotes the birds adapt in a changing climate. suspected this is happening, but the and White-naped Honeyeaters are more Mount Lofty Ranges Woodland Bird Monitoring Program provides strong evidence of these changes. Figure 4. Birds as indicators of climate change
25 Some birds may be becoming less common as a result of past habitat destruction. ‘Now that we have 10 years 20 of baseline monitoring data, we will be able to see whether efforts to control weeds and foxes and to revegetate some 15 cleared areas is helping some of the birds to recover’, said Dr Milne. ‘The results of 10 monitoring can also be used to influence
Percent of sites Percent government policies and laws to protect our native species.’ 5
The birds of the Mount Lofty Ranges are 0 also a barometer for what is happening in 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 other regions. As the monitoring program develops, it will provide useful information White-naped Honeyeater for conservation in other parts of South Spotted Pardalote Australia and across the rest of southern Spring and summer rainfall (not to scale) Australia.
6 What monitoring should we do in the future?
Woodlands in the Belair National Park
‘Ten years of good data provides a solid Woodlands, people and birds • Curiously, animals do not disappear baseline for measuring future changes in in the Mount Lofty Ranges the instant their habitat is destroyed. bird numbers. Some rare birds will require Instead, they tend to hang around in monitoring to continue for more years just • A unique collection of colourful birds ever-decreasing numbers for many to establish a baseline for their numbers,’ live in these ranges. Many birds, like years. This time-lag is known as the said Professor Possingham. the enigmatic Mount Lofty Ranges ‘extinction debt’. We are seeing a Southern Emu-wren, are found only in decrease in some woodland birds now The Mount Lofty Ranges Woodland Bird this area because it is an isolated area because of extinction debt from past Monitoring Program becomes more of hilly country with high rainfall. land clearing. powerful the longer it continues. ‘With • Around 90% of the woodlands in • The vegetation at all the bird survey more years of data we will be able to detect the Mount Lofty Ranges have been sites is being assessed, as part of an smaller changes in bird numbers and a cleared, severely changed, or broken integrated monitoring program being greater range of environmental influences up into small patches, and most of this run by the Nature Conservation Society on more bird species’, said Dr Szabo. has happened in the last 60 years. of South Australia. The integrated Some questions the monitoring will help • We know that many birds disappear monitoring will help us understand us answer in the future are: when more than 70% of the woodland whether habitat restoration and • Why are small birds decreasing, and is destroyed. Bird diversity can management programs are reversing what can we do about it? rapidly decline if 90% of the habitat is any of the extinction debt. • Can the effects of past changes to destroyed. the landscape be repaired? Are revegetation, weed and fox control programs a good investment? • What is climate change doing to our bird species? • What are the priorities for protecting and restoring our woodlands?
To answer these questions the Nature Conservation Society of South Australia is establishing habitat monitoring to complement the bird monitoring program. The data collection and analysis, and the goodwill developed over a decade, continue through a strong partnership between the Nature Conservation Society of South Australia and the University of Queensland with support from the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges NRM Board and the South Australian Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
7 Summary
Willie Wagtail
The Mount Lofty Ranges Woodland Bird Contact ‘The Mount Lofty Monitoring Program is an essential part of The Nature Conservation conservation management for the region Ranges is like a canary Society of South Australia and has been built on quality scientific 260 Franklin Street Adelaide in a coal mine for research, using standard, repeated and SA 5000 thorough methods to collect important Australia’s woodland Phone: 08 7127 4630 data. Local experts do the bird monitoring www.ncssa.asn.au landscapes—what and help ensure the program is a cost- happens here is an early effective way of keeping watch over what Scientific Papers is happening to the birds of the region. and Data Download warning for Australia’s The Ecology Centre other landscapes’ So far the project has established excellent The University of Queensland baseline information on the large range of Professor Hugh Possingham http://uq.edu.au/spatialecology/ bird species found in Stringybark and Gum mlr-birddata-66440 Woodlands in the Mount Lofty Ranges. The results of monitoring for the past 11 Photos provided by Brian Furby, Jeremy Robertson, years show that some large generalist bird Craig Gillespie (who also produced the map), species are becoming more common, Jane Burford and Judith Szabo. while many smaller birds are becoming This project has received support from many less common. bodies, including the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
Ongoing monitoring will be important to help determine why bird numbers are changing and how we should focus future work to prevent the undesirable loss of species.
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